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ETS Expands Online Assessment Options

By Sharleen Nelson

09/19/13

To accommodate the growing number of students who take advantage of online learning, educational assessment provider ETS is expanding its online, off-campus testing options.

In conjunction with ProctorU and ProctorCam,a live proctoring service and a tool for online exam-taking, colleges can now administer the ETS Proficiency Profile or the iSkills Assessment tests remotely to large groups of students at any location with a webcam and reliable Internet connection.

The ETS Proficiency Profile, which assesses student skills in critical thinking, reading, writing, and mathematics, is designed to help colleges meet accreditation requirements, measure the effectiveness of general education programs, evaluate teaching and learning, identify strengths and areas of improvement, benchmark performancevia comparative data, and evaluate program improvement efforts and overall learning outcomes.

The iSkills assessment is an outcomes-based assessment that measures the ability of students to think critically in a digital environment through a range of real-world tasks. The one-hour exam requires students to demonstrate their ability to synthesize many different types of data and make judgments about what is accurate, relevant and useful. In addition, to help motivate students and increase participation, ETS issues electronic performance level certificates to students that pass either online test.

"With these new options, institutions can now use the ETS Proficiency Profile, ETS Major Field Tests and iSkills Assessment to test the growing population of students who are remote or taking courses online," said David Payne, vice president and CEO of the Higher Education Division at ETS, in a prepared statement. "Higher education institutions are experiencing increased pressure for accountability in this fast-changing and complex educational environment, and we realize the heightened need to assess student learning in a flexible way. Not everyone is located on the traditional campus."

ETS is a nonprofit organization that provides customized assessment testing for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. For more information, visit ets.org.

About the Author

Sharleen Nelson is a freelance journalist based in Springfield, Oregon. She can be reached at snelson858@comcast.net.